5 Great Jump Squat Variations To Increase Your Vertical Jump

In a recent article I talked about how you can increase your vertical
jump using weighted trap bar jump squats. However not
everyone has access to a trap bar. If that is you does that
mean you can't get the benefits that weighted jump squats
provide? Hell no! There are in fact plenty of ways you can
perform weighted jump squats without a trap bar.

In this article I am going to take a quick look at benefits
of jump squats and then go over the pros and cons of some of
the different ways of performing them.

Why Jump Squats Totally Rock For Vertical Jump Training

There are a lot of reasons to love weighted jump squats if you
want to jump
higher. Here are the more common ones

1) They produce very high power outputs
2) Unlike Olympic lifts there is a very short learning curve. If
you can jump, you can pretty much do weighted jump squats
3) Unlike the Olympic lifts there is a bunch of ways to do them
so you don't need much in the way of specialist equipment
(Olympic lifts generally require bumper plates and a lifting
platform, not that common in most people's home gyms. or even
too many commercial gyms)
4) Unlike Olympic lifts, you don't need to dump the weights at
the top so much so you can pretty much do them anywhere
5) Unlike Olympic lifts that closely mimic a jumping motion,
weighted jump squats ARE a jumping motion
6) All of the above points are nice and dandy, but the best one
is that weighted jump squats are flat out one of the best things
you can do to increase your vertical jump

Different Types of Weighted Jump Squats

Barbell Jump Squats

PROS

Easy to adjust the loads

Most gyms (commercial and home) have
barbells

CONS

Takes your hands out of the movement

Can be uncomfortable if you let the bar
bounce up and off your upper back during the jump

People tend to use too much weight which
can cause joint problems

Barbell Jump Squat

Dumbbell Jump Squats

PROS

Easy to adjust the loads

Most gyms (commercial) have dumbbells

CONS

Takes your hands out of the movement

People tend to use too much weight
which can cause joint problems

Dumbbell Jump Squat

Sandbag Jump Squats

PROS

Easier on your neck than barbells

Fairly portable

CONS

Takes your hands out of the movement

Difficult to adjust the loads

Sandbag jump squat

Weight Vest Jump Squat

PROS

Free's up your hands for a more natural
jumping motion as well as a greater variety of jumps

Depending on the type of weight vest,
most are easy to adjust the weight

CONS

Like nearly all forms of weighted jump
squat it can get hard on the knees if you go too heavy

More portable than barbells and
dumbbells, but still annoying if you have to carry it
around.

If your weight vest is not well fitted
it can bounce around a lot making it difficult to jump

Weight vests with metal weights, while
easily adjustable, can be uncomfortable

As a side note note to this last version, I recently purchased a new weight vest that has gel
weights. These are a softer and conform to your body better.
This weight vest is quite frankly light years ahead of my
older metal based vests.

Medicine Ball Jump Squats

PROS

Jumping with a ball can be quite
sports specific for basketball players

Most gyms have a good selection of
differently weighted medicine balls

Jumping with a medicine ball will give
your abdominal muscles a good workout

CONS

If you are training at home most
people don't personally own a lot of different medicine
balls making load adjustment difficult

Holding the medicine ball takes your
arms out of the jump

Medicine Ball Jump Squat

Weighted Jump Squat Training Parameters

While I don't like to prescribe specific training
parameters in my articles because everyone is different,
there are a few general guidelines that you can follow
when it comes to using weighted jump squats in your
program.

First, keep the reps low per set. I don't like to go over
5 reps with most jumping drills because you start to lose
quality and intensity. This applies even more so with
weighted jumps. The extra load forces you to work a little
bit harder and as such your focus and effort tends to drop
off a bit quicker.

Second, don't go too heavy. This is a common mistake,
especially where weights are involved. Jumping is about
speed-strength and as you saw from my video of the trap
bar jump squat in the maximum
power training you don't need to use particularly
heavy loads. Here I have a some guidelines I like to use.
For weighted jumping drills that involve you resetting
between each rep as I did with the trap bar jump squats,
you can use up to about 15-25% of your 1RM.

For weight jumping drills that involve lower ground
contact times then it is better to go with something along
the lines of up to 10% of your body
weight. Why the difference in using % of 1RM
versus a % of body weight? It comes down to to the aim of
the exercise.

Drills that emphasize lower ground contact
times are about trying to develop reactive strength and as
such you don't want to overload the body too much.
Weighted jump squats with a reset tend to be used more for
the development of concentric power and as such slightly
higher loads result in higher power outputs.

Rest periods will also be slightly longer then for
regular unloaded jumps. Unloaded jumps typically require
only 60-120 seconds rest between sets. With weighted jump
squats which are more taxing there is a need for rest
periods ranging from the 90-240 second mark. Obviously the
higher the load you are using the longer the breaks you
should take, and also the less reps you should probably
do.

For example when I do trap bar jump squats I use the
heaviest load that produces maximum power, but I only do
sets of 2 reps and rest for 2-3 minutes per set. By contrast if I do
hurdle jumps with just body weight, the rest periods can be as
low as 60 seconds without negatively effecting
performance.

These guidelines should be enough to get you started but
if you are still unsure you can take the guesswork out of
your vertical jump training entirely by using our Vertical Jump Coaching service.

As part of the service we will create for you fully
custom training plans that include exact weights to use on
each exercise (where applicable), the number of reps,
sets, and also the rest period to take between sets.

Conclusion

I love weighted jump squats as a vertical jump training method.
Because they are an actual jump they have a tremendous carry
over to from the training track to your field of athletic
endeavor. Not only that but they are easy to learn, and as this
article illustrates, there are plenty of ways you can perform
them.